THE NEW YORKER however, the importance of Roosevelt. ((Leg over leg, as the dog went to Do- ver," he used to drawl when the Presi- dent started too rapidly on the road to Utopia. But Root agreed emphati- cally that corporate greed had to be controlled. He heartily supported the Roosevelt doctrine that the law must be enforced and special privilege denied. Otherwise the ugly head of radicalism would be raised and the capitalist sys- tem, in which both Roosevelt and Root believed, would be destroyed. "Where should we now be," Root asked after Roosevelt's death, "if Theo- dore Roosevelt had not restored to the plain people of the United States . . . confidence in our institutions?" Yet Roosevelt, who had the power to name his successor, chose Taft and not Root to succeed him in the White House. The choice was made much earlier than most historians suppose. Taft did not want the job or believe himself qualified. He desired appoint- ment as Chief Justice. Root did not really want the nomination. On the other hand, Roosevelt could probably have forced him to take it in 1908 had he tried to do so. As early as January, 1903, however, Roosevelt was intimat- ing to Taft that glory awaited him. Root, in whom was no faint trace of "I charged, as the audience gasped, that these attacks had inspired the maniacal Czolgosz to murder the President in 1 90 1. The speech was an important factor in the election of Hughes. Hearst never forgave Root. He never lost an '-' opportunity to berate him. On his part, Root has never even read the Hearst onslaughts; at the time, or since. The 1908 election which sent Taft to the White House also resulted in a Republican Legislature in N ew York. Some of Root's friends found it un- thinkable that his great talents should be lost to the government. So a com- mittee demanded that he stand for elec- tion as senator from New \7 or k. Root consented, although reluctantly. He did nothing to insure his election by the Legislature. He made no speeches, had no manager, and spent no money. This was prior to direct election of senators, and his name was promptly endorsed by the Legislature. One term was enough for him. Five years later a committee again called on Root and urged him to stand for a second term. :Y1eanwhile popular election of senators had come; a campaign for votes would be necessary. "I won't do it," he said flatly. "You want me to tour the state and proclaim that I, beyond any other man, am qual- ified for the Senate. I won't do it. Besides, I'm tired of it. The Senate is always doing such little things in such a little way." Root was less effec- tive in the Senate than he might have been. The limitations of precedent and seniority annoyed him. He had no impor- tant committee assign- ment because of them. He deluded himself, lTIOreOVer, with a belief that politics could be di- vorced from senatorial life, and during the first months of his term he declined to see the swarm of visitors and job-hunters. He even refused to send out his allotment of free seeds to rural constituen ts, and aroused no small measure of bucolic rage. As a senator, Root was more conservative than when he had been in Roosevelt's Cabinet; this, no doubt, was be- cause a pulsating, liber- the mean or petty, cordially echoed the President. He told Taft not to retire to the bench and thereby remove himself as the heir apparent. By the summer of 1905, Roosevelt had promised Taft that he could count on support from the Whitt House. This did not mean that he admired Root less. The Secretary of State, he told Taft, would be "at least as good a President as either you or I; but he does not touch the people at as many points as you and I touch them" and would "probably not be as good a d O d " can 1 ate. . . . "Root has always given all that he has to his clients," eXplained the Pres- ident to Oscar King Davis, a cor- respondent. "\Vhat people do not un- derstand about him is that if he were President, they would be his clients." So the crown went to Taft and the burden of it soon grew far too heavy. Root's interest in the Presidency had been lukewarm at most. He effectively disqualified himself during the 1906 gubernatorial campaign in New York from further consideration as a Presi- dential candidate. Hearst was running against Charles Evans Hughes. In No- vember, Root made a speech at Utica in which he recalled the diatribes which Hearst had published, years before, con- cerning William McKinley. He then _. ,*,-.:: "=-::::-'- .""'" -- .......... , ë.-'_-: ,fir , \'. ,4(f' \ .. 'ibJ'lr, ! ' I ,; þ /, ' 'f j I if It . t ')\\, I I I I ) jh' ' I I I. I I . :=;t / J. I. '.. I I J LJ.- - "See you at the barricades, l'vir. 11 1 hitsonby!" 23